Iris and Sam Fitts will spend part of their Valentine's Day at the doctor's office so Sam can have a skin cancer removed from his arm. But, that's OK. They say that being together is the most important thing. Sam had a heart transplant in 1988, surgery for a brain tumor in 1997, gall bladder surgery in 1998 and a kidney transplant in 2011. They are from Brighton, Ala. but now live in Gulf Shores. (The Mobile Press-Register / Bill Starling)

Simmering on the stove are two pots. One has collard greens. The other has butterbeans, Sam Fitts’ favorite.

It’s not Sunday dinner. Just a regular Saturday afternoon at the Fittses’ Gulf Shores home, where love is in bloom.

Iris cooks Sam’s favorites. He brings her coffee in bed. They profess their love for each other when they wake up and when they go to bed.

“Every day is a special day with us as far as love is concerned,” says Sam, 69, who met Iris on a double date in their hometown of Brighton in 1963. “We just learn to appreciate that. You are not guaranteed tomorrow.”

As the couple prepares to celebrate Valentine’s Day today, they hold onto each other just a little bit tighter. They know they are living a life that could have easily gone a different way.

Married for nearly 47 years, this November will mark the 24th anniversary of Sam’s heart transplant atUAB. He had blockage in all major arteries of his heart, including an area known as the “widowmaker.” It was bad.

At the time, there was no technology available to get additional blood to his heart. So, doctors put Sam, a minister who had been been in and out of the hospital for heart attacks, on a waiting list for a heart in January 1988. And wait, he did.

There were two false starts in getting a new heart; other patients were deemed a better match than Sam. During his wait for a new heart, Sam’s cardiologist had found evidence of 15 heart attacks. Doctors saw his heart function deteriorate and knew Sam would die without a new heart.

Then, when it looked like Sam wouldn’t make it through the night at the hospital that November night in 1988, Sam and Iris got the news that would change their lives. There was a heart for him.

He was prepped for surgery.

“The next morning, I knew that heart was in me and it was working,” he recalls. “I just felt more energetic, even with all those tubes and wires all over the place.”

Iris, now 65, was by his side, crying tears of joy.

“His color had been gray and pasty, but now, his color was pink and healthy looking,” she says.

After surgery, times got tough for the couple. Their medical bills mounted, eventually forcing them to file bankruptcy. Then, Sam had more medical problems. But, they leaned on each other and their faith.

He was a constant visitor to UAB, including surgery for a brain tumor in 1997 and gall bladder surgery in 1998.

In 2006, he went on dialysis. The drugs he was taking to prevent his body from rejecting the heart had started to affect his kidney function. The side-effect is common with anti-rejection medications. In July 2011, he received a kidney transplant at UAB.

Iris retired early from her job as a credentials coordinator for a hospital in Pensacola in 2011 so she could take care of Sam. Walking away from Sam or the marriage never entered her mind.

That’s not always the case with couples dealing with such stress, says Dr. Robert Bourge, Sam’s cardiologist at UAB, who has seen couples break up when patients are being evaluated for transplants and after the transplants happen.

“Iris and Sam were always fantastic people, very much in love,” Bourge said. “(They) had a very solid foundation in their marriage. ... They have remarkable resilience and patience.”

Today, Sam occasionally has to have skin cancers removed. He’s also being treated for minor scoliosis.

But the Fittses’ marriage has survived it all. They are out of bankruptcy, have a son, have three grandchildren and thank God for every day.

“(God is) going to give us hope and a future, because without hope, what is life,” Iris says. “No matter what your situation is, you’ve got to have hope.”

As the butterbeans cook down in their kitchen, Sam knows how much Iris loves him.

When they got married in August 1964, she didn’t know how to cook dried beans.

“The first dozen times ... I burned them. You couldn’t eat them,” she says. “After 47 years, I finally got the recipe down.”